


Shadows over Gladsheim

by Kes



Series: Thor 2 Rewritten: The Shaded Tree [10]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Canon, Asgard, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-20 15:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2434424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kes/pseuds/Kes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the birth of light, there was darkness - and it has survived. In the bright Asgardian morning, the first of the peace, who expects an ancient enemy to return from their graves?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Algrim, now that he is safely inside, ignores the grumblings of his cellmates and watches the tiny counter in his palm. Soon, it will be time; for now, he goes over what he needs to remember. There have been changes here during the hibernation – the Asgardians look younger, their grips on their spears less certain, but their cloaks are brighter – but fewer than he had anticipated. Triumph makes their crude faces savage, and that has not changed. Still they laugh at killing, still they are complacent and assured in their own supremacy; they don’t even search the prisoners. Still they use the sympathetic shielding mechanism, so effective when you know all your enemies are without.

He has spoken to some of the others, gathered what information he can about Asgard now. Turbulence across the realms, flooding in to the gap left when Asgard abruptly vanished from the stars a long war ago. Their own engagement – his companions are foot soldiers, front line people who are not privy to reasons, and some hope to perhaps be spared the likely sentence of death for their inconsequence. It will not matter any longer, and he does not press it.

The city looks just as it did last time they clashed – strange, for a mortal people with lifetimes so short they have a new king and heir already. He has taken care to register each turn, each probable point of internal architecture, always conscious of the great trust placed in him. The last of the Cursed, the last sacrifice, the last chance. If he cannot take Asgard’s defences down, then for another cycle they are vulnerable, trapped here, and fleeing the revenge of this old king and bloodthirsty new heir, and thus on him rests the weight of their entire survival.

A red rune flashes up, marks the beginning of the window. From now, Malekith _aihuate_ will be waiting above, ready to strike at his signal – whatever that may be. He stands up. “Bog’s there, mate,” a woman with enormous horns cresting her head and a green-bleeding arm says, jerking a hand at a tiny white door. He ignores her, fumbling with the too-big gloves inside his armour.

There is little sensation when he finds the wound, for all he has been seeing blood oozing through the armour ever since they reached the rainbow bridge, and finding the stone inside it is easy. Fear is making his legs weak, even through this numb calm. _Remember your charge._

“Ick!” someone says as he pulls his blood-slick hand out.

Abruptly he does it, crushes the firestone in his palm – and _burns._ Everything that he hasn’t felt since the wound comes howling back down upon him, with more. It starts at the hand and scorches through his innards, twisting, expanding, remaking – he is screaming, screaming, every instinct to let go, try to get away – he holds on. There’s voices around him, also yelling – a final blast shakes every part of him, leaving the cell smoke-black, and it is quiet.

Within, as well, it is quiet.

There is no fear, and it does not hurt. He lays a hand against the side of the cell, ignoring the guards who cluster beyond it. Pain stings – it will not harm him, but it could daze him, so he picks up the corpse of one of his cellmates and uses it to cushion the punch. His new body is stronger, unimaginably stronger, and taller than he has ever been. The guards rush towards him.

At the edge of Asgard, Heimdall’s head jerks up – he hears the scream, the explosion, the break even through the buzz of Asgardian life in Gladsheim.

It isn’t the several voices yelling that attracts Loki’s attention, or the guards shouting; it’s the flickering of the energy walls, as though the central co-ordinator is under stress – he gets up without bothering to haul an illusion over his action, and peers out. Two guards, tiny at the far end of the hall, are standing poised. Suddenly a yellow explosion spits out a blast of smoke, and there is a break in the long line of golden windows. 

One guard manages to get sword to Algrim; he turns and grabs him by the cloak, swings him into the other one, and snaps his back at the end of the swing. The second never gets up. A prison break. A good signal, a distraction, and a rent at the heart of Asgard’s power, all at once. Algrim advances on the next cell, revelling in the harsh blare of an alarm.

Seeing a huge figure – how did he miss such a man? – step out and the guards go down, one snapped and the other’s head crushed inside his helmet, Loki’s heart leaps, and as abruptly falls. A prison break so soon, so unplanned – but he will take it. Anything of the sort, he will take. As the man breaks cell after cell, advancing towards him, he waits. _Goodbye, Mother,_ he thinks, but it doesn’t ring with any force in his mind.

Heimdall grips his sword tighter. Over the alarm he can hear little, and from here can do less – but still, he holds it tighter.

-

“No, this set of figures can’t be the ones we’re looking for,” the mortal says, flicking through pages and peering at the set of equations with Midgardian notation scribbled beside them. She is a quick learner, and it is astonishing how small the leap from her people’s theories to Asgardian knowledge has become; Frigga had not truly believed Thor’s reports. But there is fast, and there is fast enough. The signs are subtle, hopefully too subtle for her son, but Frigga can see how fast the Aether is consuming Jane. In such a race, she has no faith in any of them to win. The best she dares hope for is to develop the solution in time to save the next person – for it will surely grow bolder as Jane weakens, seeking out another host.

“They could be, if the shape of these was more like this –” The table is now strewn with writing materials of both worlds, and Thor has to quickly swap Jane’s pen for an ordinary one to write on an Asgardian page.

The two women crane across, Jane careful not to touch his head with hers. “It’s possible,” Frigga says, “but it has to fit into the porting.”

Jane frowns, and reaches over to grab the pen and redraw, ignoring a brief tug of the Aether at her innards –

A harsh honking shatters the cold morning. “Shit!” The idea is gone – Frigga and Thor have leaped up from the table and knocked over the pile, and she stoops to pick it up.

“The prisons,” the queen is saying as she joins them on the balcony.

“Loki.”

“Go.”

Thor hesitates, looks at her.

“I will take care of her, I give you my word,” Frigga says.

The Aether is clutching at her stomach, tearing at her – _why did I eat that?_ – her hands are shaking. “Jane, I –”

“Be careful,” she says, her heart thudding like the footsteps of the silver robot.

He already has his hand out, and from the distance there is the crack of something breaking the sound barrier. “Deal.” Frigga puts her hand on her shoulder and pulls her backwards as Thor leaps from the balcony – the lightning and Mjollnir catch him in midleap, at the same time, and he becomes a blur of red shooting towards the palace.

Thor sorts through the energy channels over the prison, dives through them and disrupts the right ones in the right way. The sky door opens just in time for him to plummet through, kicking two prisoners to the floor as he goes. Frantically he searches the corners – no sign of Loki. There won’t be, if he is loose.

“Return to your cells and no harm will come to you of this. You have my word,” he calls out, into the hush his appearance has created. These are the Vanaheim captives, who saw him smash a Kronan to rubble with two hammer-blows. Several duck away from the fight.

He sees the chain-wrapped fist out of the corner of his eye and grabs it with his left – the person’s arm snaps, and he thrusts them aside. But they have broken the spell. Three charge for him at once – one dies on a guard’s spear, and Thor takes the rest, and the tide is rising once more.

-

The blare of the prison alarms catches them in the Fifth Legion food-hall, currently playing host to an impromptu celebration for the two prisoner transport duty squadrons and their friends, and sets in motion chaos. The top bench and table fall over as twenty members of various legion commands leap to their feet, and the lower tables soon follow. Sif is sprinting for the door, followed by the few others of Third Legion who have ended up here, and grabs sword and shield from the antechamber tables. (She is glad of the food-hall dress code that prompted her to re-don half armour, so that she has somewhere to stow them.) Outside the might of Fifth is awaiting Volstagg’s orders – his voice rings out from inside – and just behind her Fandral and Hogun are pelting for their own legion command houses. Seventh’s active compound is quiet; it still lies scattered across the Nine Realms, making sure that the transition to peace is smooth.

Not many can fit down the dungeon complex stairs; Volstagg soon has a small squadron assembled, and a messenger sent to the others to have small groups from theirs standing by, ready. This should be First Legion’s job, but the alarm sounding is a call for aid. No legion commander can afford to ignore it.

-

There are more Asgardians now, yelling things that Algrim does not listen to. The sorry sea of prisoners he leaves in his wake charge, and die; it does not matter. Some retreat back to the cells, but most have decided to fight for their tiny chance at a few days more of life, and he shatters cell after cell to add to the melee. The firestone is more powerful than he had imagined; he feels as though a touch could scorch, and a punch shatter rock.

Loki watches him advance, poised, waiting. Does he need him? Perhaps he could kill this brute, save the guards, put down the escape, present himself as a hero. No. None will accept that, not of him, not now. What is his purpose? Even here, in this strange city he knows only from centuries-ago lessons, Loki is of more use as a source of inside knowledge than any other the man will find – together, they can bring Asgard to its knees, and he can bide his time to seize the throne he was always promised. _They value the truth? I will turn their lies to truth and let them dare call me dishonourable –_ the man is standing in front of his cell. Their eyes meet.

The man starts to walk back towards the way out. Loki slips for a second, makes one desperate movement, and then smiles through teeth that would rather snarl when he turns back to face him. “You might want to take the stairs to the left.” It is a small consolation, to be the instrument of a strike at the very heart of Gladsheim; whatever the man’s purpose, he cannot turn down the low-hanging fruits on that branch.

-

Something is rippling at the corner of Heimdall’s vision, something moving closer, closer – he is running before he has consciously registered it. From outside the observatory it is clearer, mirage-like form slicing the air too strongly to be illusory, and he leaps onto the main cable of the suspension and pelts up it, level with the bulge.

Inside Darkstar ship, the rest of the blades are still in their docks, the _hethryada_ poised and ready. Under the skilled hands of the navigatory orbital, the greatship moves closer, unnoticed by the sprinting watcher. Alflyse watches _anduyon_ blade glide forward, so close to the bridge, _Elthanor, disobey, turn, he will reach you –_

Someone inside _anduyon_ screams and it starts to turn – too late. Heimdall has taken the leap, knives at the ready, and lands heavily on the side, the light disruption mechanism tearing with the ship’s coating. It feels like nothing he has ever known, and he has to strike hard to get purchase on the slightly oily, tough surface. Fire blooms in his wake.

At his side there is a hole, glowing with bright red light. He grips the knife that is not anchoring him to the ship harder and hacks at the vent, spotting the answering explosion just in time. Below is the bridge – he leaps down again as it lands in a fiery conflagration before him.

He did not see this ship coming. Failure is crawling inside him, creeping up his bones, and there is no satisfaction in the crash. He did not see the ship. He did not – has not seen that ship, either.

It rears up before him, huge and black and terrible, smaller ships like the one he has brought down sliding out from its side one after another. The last flickers of whatever it was blanked it from his sight – _why did I not see that I could not see?_ – play across its surface, and the first screams from Gladsheim echo in his ears.

Heimdall sprints back to the observatory, the keystone of Asgard’s defences. First he activates the alarm, sends it flashing harsh, sickly green across the sky – they move so fast, he is too late, he must be too late – and then he graps the sword, ready to activate what poor defences they have been able to rebuild in this last year. His understanding slides into the Bifrost, calling upon it, and at the other end he feels the great shield-sphere slowly grind into whirling, flashing light.


	2. Chapter 2

The Aether is _pulling_ at her, scraping across nerve after nerve, and a fiery clamminess rises in its wake. Jane does not whimper, but she does grip the balcony edge harder. “There is always a danger in battle,” the queen says, beside her, “but this one can carry little. The warrior’s art is to strike, but there is also an art in waiting for them. Come sit down.”

“No, I’m fine,” she replies, wildly – the corners of her vision are red, things are moving in them – the sky itself is moving, sickly green patterns accompanied by an ominous hissing with meaning that she cannot discern…

Frigga takes her arm. “Come.” Her voice is no longer soothing, gentle – it has turned harsh and urgent. “Now!”

“Why?”

“Can you not feel the alarm? No, perhaps not –” Now they are running back into the lodge, and Jane snatches up her notebook, the obscurometer and her jacket as she runs. The Aether’s turmoil eases. “The light in the sky means that Heimdall has sighted invaders.”

It also means that he is still alive – may he remain so. May they all. Frigga runs – so slow, but the mortal is pale, shaking and panting, falling behind. Outside she can hear people screaming, but the legions must be mobilising by now – the buzz of a gunship passes overhead. _Sister’s son, take care,_ she thinks.

At last they reach the tunnel and disappear into it. For a brief second she considers leaving it open for the staff, but should the invaders take this house they would then have a route to the heart of the palace. She slams it shut.

-

The alarm sounds in the skulls of the Asgardians, a simultaneous booming of danger and alert, and Fourth Legion is already in action. A messenger is too slow, and communications beams only patchily installed across their duty stations, but the job of Fourth Legion has always been to counter an invasion, long before either Fandral or the new weapons were involved. As a consequence of that duty, they have been held back in the wars. He thought they had escaped.

No orders come through; no time to wait. He races up from the command station. On the gunship deck, so resented when it was built a mere couple of years ago, he has a view of the attack – black, narrow ships, still so distant as to seem a flock of birds, but closer, so much closer –

The first one reaches shore, angling itself to smash a guntower to the ground. Fandral winces, _first men down_ , and calls to the flight, sword aloft. In the first of the gunships, he heads the long v-shape as it races to meet the enemy, underdeck guns blazing.

-

Thor feels the alarm as his reinforcements arrive, a multi-legion contingent of men under Volstagg, and for a second everything is still – save a wordless, shared turmoil of panic from the Asgardians. There is yet no sign of Loki. Thor glances upwards, makes his choice. “Hold the dungeons, do not abandon the complex to them unless you must – but it is less important than Asgard.” Volstagg nods, and he is gone, shooting up high above the city as the first golden shards of the palace shield rise above the walls.

Volstagg turns and attacks straight into a renewed assault. “I think they think we’re easy,” he pants out, and the man next to him – Drengur – grins.

“Let’s prove otherwise,” he says, and is swallowed by a knot of attackers. Shouts of “Line broken, line broken!” rise, frantic, from the Asgardian line – Volstagg hurls himself into the breach, into the confusion of bodies heading for it, and it thins. The line stabilises.

“Any get through?” he calls, fatigue dogging his strikes.

“I don’t think so!” Sigvard calls back.

Hidden in shadow on the narrow, unobtrusive left-hand stairs, Algrim walks on. In this state, he feels too heavy to run, so he settles for taking them two at a time. At the top, he is not winded, and he pauses to consider which of the three corridors to take. Two are dark, quiet but for running feet. The third is also dark, but his hearing, so much stronger now, detects a pulsing in that direction. The way is winding, but short, and he knows he has reached his goal when he comes face to face with seven guards.

The first charges, and he flicks him aside. The man hits a column and lies still. The second and third are more cautious, coming in together, but he catches each of them by the neck and vents heat into them. The collar of the one with a higher helmet-crest catches fire, and the other’s helmet glows red-hot. The men themselves scream, groan and eventually fall silent, their faces blackened. He drops them both and turns to face the trio who had taken the opportunity to strike him.

-

Third is dispersed, hardly to be found in their compound – Sif’s legs ache already with running, trying to see, to understand. There are no orders still, and no time. A hurried consultation with Hogun, and what he can muster of Sixth is flooding out into the city as ground support for Fandral’s men and to try to keep ordinary people out of the way. Her own and what remains of Volstagg’s she sets on the walls; the shield is proof, but its foundations here are not, and someone must hold the gates. Within the shield lies the palace complex, the records hall, the armories, two emergency food depositories, the great guilds meeting house – the heart of Asgard.

One side is manned, but there are so few men, even as the alarm brings them flooding back in – some of them clad for peace, so few of them with their arms and armour battle-ready – she has set some to defend who have nothing but their fists, because there is no choice.

A group of serving women are ahead of her as she sprints for the shortcut through the palace to reach the far courts – perhaps there will be more soldiers there. An idea strikes her. “Are you under orders?”

“No, my lady – we’re on our way to our chambers.”

“Don’t do that – run to the armoury, tell the guards there I sent you, and take weapons to every Asgardian soldier who lacks them. My men are on the walls, holding the gates, they are the priority. Do not go into the city, but make sure they are sent out to Sixth Legion in the streets, and ammunition to Fourth on the towers. Anyone else without work to do, set them to it.”

One of them squeaks in fear, but even she nods and sprints off in another direction. Sif runs on. Above her a figure shoots up, high in the air, above the shield – what little of Second remains lack orders, then.

In the great hall, a confusion of running figures slows her, but there is a familiar spear rising ahead and she forges through towards him. “Sif!”

She gives a terse report, legs burning, and Odin nods.

“If any of Second report, either use them or send them to me. You have done well – keep doing so.”

With a nod, she takes off again.

Jane spots her leave and barely registers it. She is out of breath and every shadow creeps red at the side of her vision, but the Aether seems to be feeding her strength, pulsing through her. In the confusion of the great entrance hall of the palace, the danger of accidental transfer is high, and she keeps her hands thrust in her pocket and her head down, following Frigga as closely as she can. At last they reach Odin, and she holds her breath, waits for the explosion.

“Frigga.” He only glances at Jane. “It’s nothing. Just a skirmish.”

“Have you learned nothing about lying to me?” As they ran through the tunnels, Frigga had felt the ground shaking. As yet, their way has lain entirely inside and she has not seen the attackers, but here is First and the household legion mobilising, and Sif on the run, and Odin in all his armour ready to fight himself. When they were young, unexpected battle brought a light to his eyes. Now, he looks fragile, and there is fear in his step. “Be careful,” she says, and touches his arm. Her heart thuds, too large for her ribs.

“After all that I – after all,” he says, not breaking eye contact as he returns the touch, “my queen still worries about me.”

It is an admission, perhaps a promise – Frigga cannot think about it now, there is no time, there is no space – “As I should, and as I must. We both remember the wisdom of it.”

There is a mighty, splintering crash from the shield outside, and the moment is broken. “Go to your chambers. I will see you when it’s safe,” he says, and that is a promise, too.

She remembers her own oath, and pulls Jane away from the tight knot at the centre of the hall. Together, they hurry upstairs, towards her chambers.

-

Above Gladsheim the air roils and twists, answering turn after turn of Mjollnir. Thor lands on the spire of the Small Courthouse, watches the attacking ships for his moment. They move too fast for him to hit, but – three are close together, the moment is _now!_ Lightning splinters across the area, reaching for Mjollnir but scattering across the sky – when he was training they would have called this sloppy – two of them just roll out of the way, but the third catches on a tendril and starts to burn. Two gunships descend on it for the kill.

Again he leaps into the air, gives Mjollnir another turn. A gust of wind catches a ship and almost breaks it on the palace shield. Most of his winds he is keeping high, out of the way of Fandral’s gunships; smaller and more fragile than the enemy, they cannot withstand such forces. He must look for the gaps between.

If only they were as slow as the great Chitauri ships. Moving at this speed, not even he is agile enough in the air to physically hit them. Perhaps the big ship – but it hangs far away, inert, stationary, and to leave his place now is to leave Gladsheim devoid of one of the few effective weapons. Thor fights on, using the wind and threat of his presence to disrupt the enemy’s flights, trying to drive them into the shield that has already destroyed one of them.

Below him in in the city, chaos reigns. For the men on the ground, Hogun’s Sixth and any other soldiers he has found in the city, it isn’t a battle. They have no long-range weapons, and only when a ship falls is there a fight on the ground. He does not recognise the attackers.

Red light smashes into the building ahead of him. Rubble is falling, and he leaps backwards, hears the sick squelch of someone in its path as it hits the ground. “Empty that building!” he calls, for all he knows there is no safe haven; the palace grounds below the shield are too small, they will be too full of running soldiers to take many of the people. Without that haven, they must shelter below ground – and until they can find such a place, they are dying on the streets.

He needs to gain height, needs to see how the land lies. The city is larger than a few blocks – he needs to know more. _Fandral, I hope your men keep their attention._ Finding handholds on the rubble of the destroyed building in front of him, Hogun rises, until he can see enough – more men needed for the smithery district –

Above him a gunship buzzes, and one of the enemy craft dives towards them both, red guns blazing. He ducks. When he looks up again, the gunship is spinning down past him, out of control, the last of its crew slumped at the tiller, and the enemy is diving towards what remains of this building.

Hogun takes a deep breath, and leaps.

-

There have been changes in Asgard. Alflyse rolls to avoid the slow manoeuvering of a tiny skyboat, straight into the path of a guntower; where are the great fire cannons? Where the fire-spitting spears? The tiny scraps of metal gouge lines into the outer casing, but as long as they do not hit the vents – she twists, knocking a skyboat from the air – the blades stand firm.

Three blades of the eight that tested fit for deployment are down, gone from the blue visuals array she navigates by. _Anduyon_ by the watcher, _emkaril_ by the shield, and _melgre_ taken by the lightning and the skyboats. _Melgre_ ’s loss, the first unanticipated, means her own orders change, her own role in the battle – she considers abdicating it, but they still need the Aether, they will always need it, and to fail the Darkstar in this would be to surrender it. Beneath her, _feande_ blade starts to spin, twirl – she never had the long commander’s training – it bucks beneath her as she hammers at the panels, _turn, turn_ –

“Try upwards!” Egremal yells, and she drags her hands across the panel, catches the wind that has them in its grip – Meleron looses a bark of red fire across to somewhere – the blade gives one last buck, and she is sailing through clear air above.

-

The last of the guards drops to the floor, charred and steaming. There have been three sets of them, and Algrim has killed them one by one, following always the concentration of guards and the buzzing that thrums upon his feet. It takes only a moment to wrench the doors open.

Before him rises the heart of the sympathetic shield, a spinning whirl of golden light, the image of the dome outside. _Such arrogance._ It is so fragile; he walks up to it, sticks a hand into the path of the outermost blade, and tugs when it hits him. Fire blossoms through the room, and Algrim is thrown backwards, hitting the wall hard, the arm he used numb. Energy that was once channelled into the system breaks out. The shield begins to break down.

At the other end of the Bifrost, mentally entangled in the controlling energy channels, Heimdall _screams._


	3. Chapter 3

Frigga has stopped walking, and is staring out from the balcony through the disintegrating shield as though transfixed. “Um. Are you all right?”

“I know those ships. I’ve written about them, read about them,” she says.

“What are they?” Jane feels faint and haggard, the Aether buzzing inside her and her vision filled with creeping red. The run to Frigga’s chambers feels like it has drained her, and she holds on to the side of the still pool with all her strength to stay upright. _I will not faint._

“The dark elves.” Abruptly the queen turns and bears down on her. “They are here for your burden.”

Nothing makes sense, it doesn’t – “I thought they were dead.”

“So did I – so did we all. But they are here for the Aether, they must be.” Frigga glances at her door – how long will it hold? If they brought down the shield, they must have a mighty power, either inside or at the Bifrost. Not long. “You must do exactly what I tell you, no questions.”

Jane Foster is pale and shaking, and her eyes are like an eclipse of great Kaldstjarna. “Yes, ma’am,” she says, but Frigga is already moving.

Her own communications beam crackles into life, and she hauls a chest over with one hand and begins opening it while she conveys the message to anyone who can receive – the dark elves return for their weapon. The most fearsome of Asgard’s enemies return, spitting red destruction across the city. Fury boils inside her as the blue beam subsides and she pulls out the contents of the chest; first, a short sword in a style not made in Asgard for near a millenium and a half; second, a set of armour. She lays that aside – too risky to take the time, now she no longer has it on magical call.

“Stand up.” Frigga circles the mortal, time after time, feeling her energy, scrutinising every inch of her. Slowly, a mirror image comes into focus above the pool, staring at the both of them; Jane makes a small, astonished noise as Frigga anchors the magic in her mind. _I have not done this for a long span of years,_ she thinks, the old battle-fire starting to rise in her throat.

-

There is no salvaging his gunship’s communications mechanism, and Fandral has resigned himself to making the leap to another the minute Kylfa can get him close enough. They begin to skim along the side of the shield – along the top edge of the shield –

“The shield’s breaking up!”

“Yes, I can see that!” he shouts back, looking for his gunships. They are scattered, far too few – an enemy craft is zooming towards the centre of the city in eerie silence, and the guns are barking from the palace towers.

His own gunship shakes beneath him in a blast of red light. Kylfa is gone. Fandral leaps up and grabs the tiller before the ship spins out of control, and swoops down. After the blast, helmsman control of the guns is destroyed – there is another Asgardian gunship, speeding towards him, with only one man. Better to lose a dying ship and be able to shoot than have a useless ship. How far away is that enemy craft?

As he comes closer to the other ship, the person inside it becomes clear. “Hogun! My communications are down, I’m going to jump.”

Instead of veering down so that he can, Hogun leans to call to him. “Then you do not know. They have come for the Aether, the dark elves. She is in the palace.”

The ship is closer now. Fandral tracks its course – arrow straight, lining up with the Bifrost. “Oh, no.” Few of their guns hit – less make an impact. His own guns are out of reach. He thinks Hogun’s are damaged. The other gunships are converging as quickly as possible, but there are so many enemy craft in the sky, and they are so far away. Thor is so far away, scattering a knot with lightning – has he even seen?

With a shove, he pushes the tiller down, and the ship is level with the enemy’s path, level with the throne room. Hogun is yelling, behind him – _is he following? No, no, don’t follow_ – he pulls up. Fandral is flying in a barrage of Asgardian fire, keeps his course so that they can aim around him for the bigger ship, looses his sword in its sheath. When it comes down to it, all these new weapons are just ways to heft cold, sharp metal at a distance – and at a distance, there is less control.

The ship is closer, closer – either they swerve, and he has won, or they are confident in the power of their blades and he will be upon them. With instants to spare, Fandral releases the tiller and jumps, letting his momentum carry him, sword first, into the craft.

Fire sprouts beneath him, answers his sword, _for Asgard for Asgard for Asgard,_ and he shifts his weight to widen the breach. The craft doesn’t slow. There’s a handhold. He tries to pull his sword out and strike again, but it is stuck on something, _come on!_ The palace is closer, closer – the impact nearly shakes him off.

Another impact. Another. They are spinning, and he still cannot get his sword loose. Surely it is too late now. The floor is a long way down, but he launches himself towards it anyway, away from the spinning short end of the craft; if he survives it, at least someone will be here to fight.

Fandral hits the ground and tries to run, one leg bending strangely under him. At the end of the hall is the throne, visible through the forest of columns, and he fixes his eyes on it. He will get there. He can.

Beside him, the great bulk of the enemy craft spins to a halt, and the tramping of boots announces First Legion’s arrival. It is hushed, quiet. He pushes on, draws level with the base of it. The men of First Legion advance.

Red. The dark elf guns are as silent as their ships, but the Asgardian soldiers are not – two cries, quickly, follow each other. The shieldwall stays firm. Fandral slips through it, into the second rank full of men who lack sword, or spear, or shield; he isn’t the only one bleeding, either. Someone hands him a dagger.

The barrage of fire continues, and they hold. Everything seems far away, distant, slower. A panel in the enemy craft opens with a chittering, piece by piece, and the two peoples face each other for a moment. The dark elves’ armour makes them seem long-eared skeletons, hanging in the darkness within. One of them reaches for something and throws it, a tiny dot arching in slow motion –

It hits the shieldwall, void crackling out into their ranks – men are screaming, sucked in, Fandral can feel the force on him from here and the shieldwall is broken, dark elf guns firing red and red and red. They charge, both sides. Fandral catches hold of a flying braid and drags the enemy soldier towards him, catching it in the gut with a dagger. People of both sides are falling around him, the field thinning – the thunder of another void grenade shakes the floor, and another.

Between two elves, at the entrance, a different one strides out. Unmasked, this one, skin near as white as the others’ masks, and a white cloak flapping behind. Fandral tightens his grip on his dagger and starts to move forward, but his bad leg shakes and stumbles – a corpse shifts under his other foot, and he is on the floor, enemies bearing down on him.

He tries to strike at the dark elf above him, but the reach of his blade thwarts him.


	4. Chapter 4

The entrance of the enemy craft into the palace changes the battle. The tattered remnants of Fourth Legion, answering now to Hogun as the highest-ranked man in the air, find the enemy retreat rather than give fire, though they permit no neglect. Sixth, in the city, have time to breathe as they rush around, putting out fires and trying to make sense of the destruction. Third and Fifth, on the walls, split to reinforce Sixth. Some craft are still willing to engage in the battle, shooting down into the grounds of the palace and the city –too many to abandon this fight entirely for that in the palace, though Sif accompanies a contingent that way, through a barrage of red fire. In the walls, the communications beams are working.

All the same, it is a long way between the walls and the throne room, a long way even between the entrance hall and the throne room – and further still to Frigga’s chambers, where the queen is checking on Jane in her hiding place. Her transformed eyes shine eerily out of the darkness, and she says, voice hoarse, “He knows.”

“Who knows? And what?”

“I don’t know. But someone is calling for me, as though they know where to find me.”

So battle will come to her.

-

Sif reaches the throne room at the same time as Odin, his cloak tattered and his helmet broken-horned. There is little enough for them to do there. Two enemy soldiers and one Asgardian still fight, but the enemy falls with a single blast from Gungnir onto a floor littered with corpses, rubble and stone-dust. Behind them, the throne lies in ruins. “Dark elves,” Odin whispers, horror written on a face she has always thought inscrutable, unknowable.

“My king, the queen – she sent a message –”

“She did?” Odin stumbles, clutches Gungnir. “Go!”

“Look to him,” she says to a man of First Legion, and is running again, desperately trying to remember the way. From the state of the throne room, she will be too late.

-

Frigga leaves Jane there, feeds more strength into her illusion, and puts out another call for aid here. Footsteps sound outside, too soft and quiet for any Asgardian boot, and she shuts her eyes for a moment; the illusion of Jane must be as much herself as this body. She has barricaded the door with a couch, a bench and a table. The door does not move at the first push.

Something strikes it, something crackling. The door is ripped off its hinges, crumpled and chewed into nothingness, and the furniture follows. _I hope they have no more of those._ She waits, standing alongside the still pool.

Out of the dust comes a tall figure, white cloaked and white faced, straight out of the codices she has overseen the creation of and the stories she has told. A part of her mind leaps up and scrambles to the side of the room – she advances, sword in hand. “Stand down, creature, and you might still survive this.”

“Trouble me not with your threats, mortal one. I am here for what is mine.” He has his own blade out, a strange blackened affair, wickedly hooked, but his grip on it is not as firm as it should be.

Frigga keeps stalking forward. “The Aether will never be yours, Malekith. Once we thwarted your destructive nature, and so it will be, always.” He is within sword’s-reach, but she will not strike until he does; time is on her side, where he must rush.

“Who are you?”

“Frigga, Queen of Asgard,” she says – her blade lashes out as he moves and catches his wrist, glances off the vambrace – perhaps he hoped she would be distracted. Again he tries, and this time her response knocks the black sword from his hand, sends it spinning onto the balcony. At the edge of the room, Jane squeaks.

Now Frigga presses her attack with a lightning onslaught. Malekith backs away, fast but clumsy, giving ground. A slash at his side nearly catches him between the white armour-plates – she is already attacking again. Backwards, backwards she drives him, aiming for a pillar-base. He steps back, stumbles, and she is on him, slamming him into the stone with force enough to make him cry out. His throat lies exposed and her sword moves to strike –

Something hard and implacable seizes her from behind, dragging her backwards. Malekith’s face is bleeding black. She reverses the sword and thrusts it backwards. The tip shatters on something harder than stone and she twists, sees the blackened horns and spikes. _Fire-baresark_. Alone, she cannot twist free. Frigga is still and waits, ears straining for the pounding of Asgardian boots; they must come soon, surely they must. All the same, her mind spins through other possibilities, other plans. The universe will not fall from her failure.

Malekith is advancing on Jane. “You have taken something, child. Give it back.”

The illusion backs away, into the wall, and she hopes he has not noticed that the end of a trailing skirt swished straight through it. He comes closer, closer, cornering the illusion into the angle of the door, and reaches out into thin air and empty light, dissolving at his touch.

Face twisting with fury, he whirls to face her, screaming something that she only understands as _hate._ A smile creeps onto her face. “Where is it?”

There is no sound from outside – if they are coming, they will be too late. Frigga gathers herself, breathes deeply, stares at the pool that lies still unrippled at the centre of the room. “I’ll never tell you,” she hears herself saying, to make sure her voice works.

He says something then, but she does not hear it. There is a fine line between a word and a spell, a cry and a sending, and Frigga roars magic out with all the energy she can summon. It barely ripples Malekith’s cloak, but that is not the point – gold, distinct, it spills out into the stormy sky. Only one can reach her in time to keep him from Jane, now –

There is no more energy. She should – she should be able to keep it going – she is falling – the magic fails.

-

From above the city, Alflyse sees the golden blast spill out of a high balcony and the lightning-wielding luminor abandon his winds and shoot towards it. The screens pick him up as just a scrap of blue, disappearing into the palace, where two scraps of red move around as though searching for something.

With _melgre_ down, _feande_ dodges a line of Asgardian fire and moves into position, waiting for the surge of red that will greet their success. “Ready hatches,” she calls out.

“Hatches ready for opening,” the reply comes.

Lightning blossoms across the screen in the tower as a cluster of blue dots burst onto the scene, and the two red figures are moving, running – “Now!” she yells, banks the ship down and feels it speeding towards the palace – for an instant she wonders if it would be better to miss, with the Aether unretrieved –

By the time she finishes the thought, the Darkstar and his now-cursed Satellite have landed in the cockpit, the Darkstar limp and twitching, and the order to retreat is given. The blades have spent their ammunition, and with the Darkstar down there is no hope of extracting the Aether.

Alflyse joins the flight of the blades back to the greatship, failure making the gaps in their ranks seem larger.


End file.
